Saint: A Dark Mafia Romance

by Aubrey Irons

  “You are not turning me on, Lo- Logan!”

  She gasps as my other hand slides right up between her legs and slides against the front of her panties. She's wet there, very wet. “You're going to have to put up a better argument on that one, Doc.” She whimpers as I push her soaked panties to the side and slide my finger against her opening. I lean my lips close to her ear. “Because I'm not buying it.”

  She bites her lip between her teeth, her brow furrowing as I slide my finger into her pussy. And there's something about the way she sucks on that bottom lip that has me rock hard in my pants, and I growl as I lean down, ready to suck that lip myself. Her eyes close, and she tilts her head up as if ready for the kiss I know we both want. Ready to close the distance. And I want nothing more than to bruise those lips with my own, and taste her tongue across my own.

  “Doctor Archer?” Quinn's eyes shoot open as one of the analyst's voices calls from somewhere down the hallway. “Doctor Archer, did you want to look over those genome resistance reports again?”

  Her eyes go wide for a moment, and then she narrows them at me angrily. It’s as if she’s suddenly realizing what’s happening. As if I’ve just tricked her into this position somehow.

  “Logan!” She hisses, shoving at my chest. “Get your fucking hands off of me, you meathead.”

  Meathead?

  “One second!” She calls out to the analyst, all while pushing my arm away from her. I roll my eyes and slide my hand out of her panties as she fumbles to smooth down her skirt and button her blouse back up, shooting me a dirty look. “I can't believe you just did that!”

  “Oh, what, like that's all me, Quinn?” I scowl at her as I lean in close, my voice low. “Don't pretend you weren't just dripping wet to feel my fingers inside you.”

  Her face goes crimson red. “Don't be disgusting.” Somehow, the flustered look on her face makes her look almost as sexy as she looked when my fingers were stroking her wetness.

  Trisha, the analyst, pokes his head into the room. “Doctor Archer?”

  “Trisha! Yes!” Quinn’s face is flushed and she quickly clears her throat as she smiles at her. “Let’s, uh, let’s take a look at those reports.”

  She shoots me a look as they both move past me towards the conference table, but I can’t help but bring my hand up to palm her ass as she brushes past. Quinn whirls back to me, her look tense, but her eyes wild, and I just grin at her.

  “Get the door, would you, Logan?”

  Trisha’s back is turned as she flips through one of the binders on the table, and I look Quinn dead in the eye as I bring a finger up to my mouth - the very same finger that was up until recently buried in her slit, and grin before sucking it clean. It’s the predictability of her squeamish and wrinkled-nose reaction that’s so much fun, and I smirk and give my finger one last dramatic lick before I turn and leave her to work.

  Yeah, good luck with that, sweet cheeks, I grin to myself as I saunter down the hall back to my own office.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Quinn

  “I can’t just let you out here, miss.” The cab driver wearing a leather vest and a porkpie hat is a big guy, but even he looks nervous as he glances at me through the rear-view mirror.

  “Oh, it’s-”

  What, ‘It’s scary as shit here?’ Here in whatever utter horror-show of a warehouse area of Brooklyn I’m crazy enough to have driven to in the middle of the night’? Cause, yeah, that’s actually exactly what it is. But I had to, and I have to be here.

  “It’s fine, I’m meeting some friends.”

  The cab driver mutters something and looks warily out the windows at the darkened, dilapidated warehouse that we just watched Logan’s car pull up to about five minutes before. “I got a daughter about your age, honey. Ain’t no way I’d let her hang out with any friends that hung around a fuckin place like this. ’Scuse the language.”

  I push cash through the divider. “Good, don’t. I really am fine though”

  Yeah, totally fine.

  I definitely shouldn’t be here, I think to myself as the cab roars away into the depths of the night, leaving me alone in the shadows. Except by the thudding sounds of music and cheering coming from the warehouse looming in the darkness, I know I’m not really alone.

  I’m still undecided which one is a worst prospect.

  Granted, this was a terrible idea, but I couldn’t not follow him tonight. Not after I’ve spied on him ducking out of the building late at night and heard him stumbling home even later, usually nursing an ice-pack or bloody towel of some kind. So tonight, I was ready and waiting in the cab out front of our building when he slipped out and got behind the wheel of his Maybach. Tonight, I followed him here to the sketchiest, darkest block in the borough of Brooklyn. Whatever this is, I have to know and I have to see it, even if I’m not sure why.

  As I creep around the corner of some shipping containers, I can see two men standing out front of the warehouse door itself. Now, I may be utterly out of my element here, but I do know door security when I see it. I skirt around the shadows to the side of the building, and find myself creeping between a pile of old wooden crates trying to ignore the possibility of coming across rats or worse. I creep up to the dirty little window emanating light from inside.

  The whole cab ride over, I wasn’t quite sure what I’d find tonight. I mean sure, I had some suspicions about the nature of what Logan was up to, but nothing - absolutely nothing - prepares me for what I see when I finally claw my face up to the edge of the window and peer through.

  The scene is medieval.

  Logan is stripped down to the waist, his tattooed muscles glistening with sweat under the crappy overhead lights as he slowly circles around the man facing him. The other guy is shirtless as well, and both of them eye each other with grim looks with their fists raised up. They’re surrounded by a jeering crowd, all shouting and waving money and fists as the two men in the ring dance around each other.

  The guy across from him swings wildly at Logan, who ducks the fist and crashed his own into the guy’s ribs. Logan steps back for a second but his opponent rallies and sends an elbow crashing into his gut, doubling him over. I’m cupping my mouth with both my hands to keep from screaming as the guy starts to rain blows down onto Logan, even though he’s on his knees in the ring.

  This is where he goes. This is what he does. This is why I found him that night bleeding and broken in my elevator.

  I almost can’t watch this happen, and I’m just about to turn away when Logan suddenly springs to his feet. The whole vibe of the place changes in a heartbeat as Logan slams the guy over onto his back and just starts to wail on him. He looks ferocious and animalistic and just so raw in the way he lays into his opponent. That is, except for his face. Because his face is blank and neutral, as if he’s just going through a motion has has to do.

  The fight is over thirty seconds after that when the other guy goes limp on the ground beneath him. The crowd of men around them go wild as the bell sounds, and there’s a furious exchange of screaming and yelling and fists full of cash as some sort of referee raises Logan’s arm and two other men drag his unconscious opponent from the ring.

  A man wearing a bomber jacket with black hair and an olive complexion pushes his way through the crowd and approaches Logan. He’s grinning, but there’s something dark and something sinister in that smile. Logan glares at him as the man claps him on the back and mimes a few shadow-boxing punches. He’s chuckling as Logan just stands there glowering at him, his chest heaving and his skin shining with perspiration.

  The man says something and pokes him hard in the chest, and suddenly Logan just spits at the guy’s feet. There’s a sudden stillness between the two men, and I’m not sure what I’m expecting to happen next. But the man only laughs as he points a finger at Logan, prodding his chest again as he winks at him, before he turns and walks calmly away. I watch as Logan shakes his head and spits on the ground again before he walks out from my viewpoint.
>
  “Jesus fucking Christ, Quinn?!” Logan hisses at me as he steps out of the side-door to the warehouse. I’m leaning against the side of his car, glaring at him. “What the fuck are you doing here?!”

  I take a step towards him as he rakes a hand through his sweat-slicked hair, still shirtless in the dim glow of the streetlight. “What the fuck am I doing here?” I’m shaking my head and staring at him “Are you fucking crazy, Logan? Do you have some sort death wish?!”

  “Lower your voice, Quinn,” He growls, his eyes darting to the side door. He grabs my arm. “Look, just get in the car-”

  “No! What the hell was that back th-”

  “Get in the fucking car, Quinn, before someone sees you.”

  I shoot him a last glaring look before I step into the car, jumping as he slams the door after me.

  “That’s what you’ve been doing!?” I hiss at him, staring at him like he’s completely insane as we roar back towards Manhattan. “I mean, you said you were boxing for fuck’s sake, but Jesus.” I shake my head at him, suddenly scared about what I’ve just witnessed. “I mean there aren’t even any gloves.”

  The wind buffets against his face and through his hair, and he grins and shrugs before he turns and spits blood out through the open car window. “Yeah, well, that is why they call it bareknuckle.”

  I stare at him. “It’s barbaric.”

  He shrugs again, looking both completely insane and absurdly attractive in this dirty, hot way as he sits there shirtless in the car, his muscles and tattoos still gleaming with his sweat. “Not gonna fight you on that, darlin.”

  OK, I know he’s this big macho ex-Marine or whatever, with all hardcore tough-as-nails crap that comes with that. But this is completely insane. He must know that.

  “This is totally nuts, you know that, right?” I reach out with a tissue from my pocket and dab at the blood on the side of his face. “You could die in there, Logan.” I say it quietly, keeping my eyes locked on his.

  “Is that your medical opinion, Doctor Arch-”

  “Yes.”

  His eyes narrow at my cutting him off, but he nods slowly as the streetlights streak across the windshield. “Well, not today.” And there’s that grin again, that armor coming right back up and shutting me out.

  “I saw you arguing with that guy, afterwards.”

  Logan’s face tenses, but his lips stay closed.

  “You could've knocked him out, but you didn’t.”

  “My my, Doc, resorting to violence? Isn’t that against your oaths or something?”

  “Stop being cute. Why didn’t you hit him?”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “What, is he paying you or something?”

  Logan barks out a laugh. “I’m a majority shareholder in a multi-billion dollar corporation, Quinn. I’m not exactly hurting in the finance department.”

  “OK, so why the hell would-” I stop, the answer suddenly as clear as day in front of me. Why would a man like Logan do anything anyone says, especially someone he clearly hates like the guy from the fight?

  “You’re doing this because they’re making you, aren’t you?” Logan doesn’t say a word, and I push on. “They aren’t paying you, so what, are they blackmailing you or something?” Instantly, I know I’ve hit a nerve as I see his face harden again as he stares out at the road in front of us. “I’m right, aren’t I.”

  “Sort of. No.” He sighs as he runs a hands through his hair. “It’s complicated.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Not to this.”

  “Try me.”

  Logan looks at me with a curious smirk on his face. “Let’s get a drink.”

  Yep, there he goes shutting me out again. “Fine” I say defeatedly, turning to look out my own window and shake my head.

  Logan turns a quick corner, and he suddenly pulls up at once of the nicest, most exclusive boutique hotels in the city.

  “Do you like scotch?”

  I blink at the posh, ultra-cosmopolitan bar on the ground floor of the hotel and turn to stare at him. “Are you serious? No offense, but have you seen how you look right now?” He looks like, well, he looks hot, but he also looks like he just went three rounds in a bareknuckle boxing match.

  ‘Cause, you know, he did.

  He’s also still not wearing a damn shirt, and I’m hardly more appropriately dressed for this kind of place, wearing cut-off denim shorts and a t-shirt. Logan just shrugs though. “Simple question, Archer. Scotch: yay or nay?”

  I sigh. “Fine, yay. Very yay.”

  “Great.” His grin widens, and he nods towards the glove compartment. “Pop that and grab it, and let’s go.”

  Inside is a bottle of scotch that probably cost the same as at least a month or two of my rent. I’m opening my mouth to ask what the heck we’re doing, but he’s already hopping out of the car and tossing keys to a valet as he yanks a t-shirt on.

  “Fine”, I mutter as I snatch the bottle and step out. “Bringing your own booze to a bar? Little low-brow for a guy like you isn’t that Logan?”

  He grins and takes my arm as he steers us through the front doors of the hotel, past the lobby, and past the bar. “We aren't going to the bar, we’re going upstairs.”

  I balk at him “Uh, excuse me?”

  He rolls his eyes. “Quinn, get over yourself. We’re going all the way upstairs.” He nods to the front desk guy who seems to know him, and Logan palms the guy a fat wad of bills before steering me towards the elevators.

  “OK, so where are we-”

  “Quinn.”

  “What?” I snap.

  “Do me a favor.”

  “Wha-”

  “Stop talking for like, one whole minute, okay?”

  I open my mouth to say something back, but instead I snap it shut and shake my head, not wanting to give him the satisfaction as the elevator moves up. The doors open and we’re up on the roof-top lounge area, complete with a pool and a bar and an utterly insane view of Manhattan. It’s also completely deserted.

  “Did you plan this or something?” I say, frowning at him.

  “What, paying off the night manager so that I could come up to the pool bar alone and drink scotch after my fight?’

  I look at him expectantly.

  “Uh, yeah, Quinn, I did.”

  I’m laughing in spite of myself, watching his face crack into a smile as I do so.

  “What, you think, that I did all this for you or something?” He grins. “I’m not telepathic, you know. It’s not like I knew you were going to follow me around like a stalker tonight.” I try to hide my grin, knowing he’s right, and he laughs. “You’re a welcomed addition though.”

  He reaches over the empty bar and grabs two glasses before we walk over to the pool’s edge. He’s kicking his shoes off, and I start to follow suit before I realize he’s pulling his t-shirt up over his washboard abs and over his head.

  “Uh, what are you doing?”

  He tosses his shirt aside. “Uh, swimming, darlin. It’s a pool, that’s what you do in them.”

  “Cute.”

  “Oh, you’re coming in too, you know.”

  I raise an eyebrow at him as he starts to unbuckle his belt. “Yeah I don’t think so.”

  “Nope, you have to,” he shrugs nonchalantly, which is hard to pull off when his face looks like the cat that just caught the canary. “Post-victory tradition, jump in the damn pool.”

  “I don’t have a suit.” It’s a lame excuse, since he clearly didn’t bring one either.

  “Neither do I.” He’s stripping his jeans off, and I’m blushing but not really trying to look away as he stands there in tight, grey boxer-briefs that cling to every inch of him and I do mean every inch. It’s almost not even fair. I mean the guy’s a billionaire already, does he have to look like some kind of Greek warrior too? He tosses his pants onto a lounge chair and looks at me expectantly, standing there with that incredible body, with his insanely ripped abs and those twin groo
ves of his hips leading down…

  Ooooo-kay. Yeah, I am definitely not getting in a pool with Logan Dempsey looking like that.

  “Archer, you’ve got about 10 seconds to start stripping before I toss you in just like that.”

  We lock eyes, and I know he’s crazy enough to be serious. He’s also not going to get this one over on me, and so instead I just shrug and start unbuttoning my shorts. He smirks, looking pleased with himself.

  “You didn’t think I would, huh?”

  “No, not really actually.”

  “Shows what you know then.” I’m hoping my voice comes off as flippant and confident instead of the bundle of nerves I feel like inside. I’m pushing all the thoughts out of my head though of how crazy it is that I’m pulling my t-shirt up over my head and letting him see me in my black bra and panties. I’m actually relieved for a second that I actually managed to wear a matching pair, though I’m kind of wishing I wasn’t wearing a damn thong.

  Whatever, I think. It’s not like he hasn’t seen it all before.

  Yeah, not really a comforting thought, actually.

  But a minute later, we’re both standing in chest-high water clinking glasses, and I’m doing my damnedest to not think about the fact that I’m barely a foot away from a practically naked Logan Dempsey in just my underwear.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Logan

  Ok, there’s playing with fire, and then there’s just sticking your whole fuckin hand in the flames.

  Late-night underwear pool-hopping with Quinn Archer is so, so much the latter.

  I’m kind of going out of my mind here, and I know I’m pushing this whole “innocent flirtation” thing way too far. I’m dancing on that edge. I’m testing myself here, and I also think I’m about to lose. Why the hell is she up here? Why did I bring her, and why on Earth did she even say yes? She’s a smart woman, obviously, but I’d have thought she was smart enough to see right through my bullshit and just flat-out turn me down on this. I mean the whole point was to push her buttons until she backed down and I’d just drive her home. The plan never actually went further than that. Certainly not to the point where I’m standing two feet away from her in a pool when she’s just wearing that fucking black lacy bra and thong panties hugging all her curves in all the right places.